Ash: The Lost History
Chapter 97 : His deep voice reminded her briefly of G.o.dfrey Maximillian: she was unaware of the sh

His deep voice reminded her briefly of G.o.dfrey Maximillian: she was unaware of the sharp crease that appeared in the flesh between her eyebrows.

"Names do not matter, my lord de la Marche. Here in the forests of the south, there in the cities of the north, we are one people. From Holland to Lake Geneva, we are one. Our lord the Duke is the embodiment of that, as his father was before him; but Burgundy will outlast Charles of Valois. Of that I am certain."

Into the hush, Ash found herself saying thoughtfully, "Not if someone doesn't do something about the Visigoth army out there!"

Faces turned towards her; white discs in the sunlight that now streamed in through the ancient stone windows.

"The Duke unites us." The Viscount-Mayor, Folio, spoke up. "And therefore, since he is here - the north will come south, and rescue us."

It will? Restraining a sudden, blind hope, Ash turned towards de la Marche. "What's the news from the north?"

"The last message spoke of fighting around Bruges; but that news was a month old when it arrived. The armies of the Lady Margaret may have won a victory by now."

"Will they come? Just for one town under siege?"

"Dijon is not merely 'one town under siege'," the chamberlain-counsellor Philippe Ternant said, looking at Ash. "You stand in the heart of Burgundy, here; in the duchy itself."

"My Duke," Olivier de la Marche said, "wrote, three years ago, that G.o.d has inst.i.tuted and ordained princes to rule princ.i.p.alities and lords.h.i.+ps so that the regions, provinces and peoples are joined together and organised in union, concord and loyal discipline.17 Since the Duke is here - they will come."

About to ask What strength are the forces in the north?, Ash found herself interrupted.

Olivier de la Marche, briskly now, said, "Demoiselle-Captain. You and your men have more recently seen what lies beyond these walls."

"In Carthage?"

De la Marche's weather-beaten face twisted, as if with some pain. "In what you have seen south of Burgundy first, demoiselle. We know little of the lands outside our borders, these past two months. Except that there are refugees every day on the roads outside the city."

"Yes, messire." Ash got to her feet, and realised that was out of pure habit, to let them see that she was a woman wearing a sword, even if it was without armour and thus not a customary thing to do.18I'm not used to being a hero of anywhere . . .

"We came in through the French King's territories, under the Darkness," she began. "They say there that the dark extends north to the Loire - at least, they were saying that two or three weeks ago. We didn't see any fighting-" She grinned, toothily. "Not against the Visigoths, anyway. So I suppose the peace treaty is holding."

"Motherf.u.c.kers!" de la Marche spat, explosively. Some of the merchant princes looked startled at his language, but not, Ash thought, as if they disagreed with the sentiment. There was a rumble from the few refugee French knights present.

Ash shrugged. "That's the Universal Spider19 for you."

"G.o.d rot him," de la Marche observed, in his battle-loud voice. Merchants and n.o.blemen who would have winced at the champion's loudness in peace now looked, Ash thought, as if the big Burgundian were their last hope.

"G.o.d rot him, and German Frederick!" de la Marche finished.

She has a brief memory of some of these n.o.ble German and French refugees when they stood in the cathedral at Cologne, at her marriage to Fernando del Guiz: all of them in bright liveries, then, and with well-fed faces. Not now.

"Messire-"

Getting a second wind, de la Marche thumped the long table. "Why should their lands be spared, treacherous sons of b.i.t.c.hes? Just because the grovelling little s.h.i.+ts signed 'treaties' with these Visigoth b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!"

"Not all of us are traitors!" A knight in Gothic armour sprang to his feet, cras.h.i.+ng his plate gauntlet down on the table. "And at least we do not wish to continue to cringe behind these walls, Duke's man!"

De la Marche ignored him. "What else, Demoiselle-Captain?"

"Their lands aren't being 'spared' much of anything. Whoever wins this war - there's going to be major famine." Ash looked around the table, at jowled faces somewhat bitten by short rations.

What had been prosperous towns.h.i.+ps, on the rivers of southern Burgundy; what had been rich abbeys; all of these are in her memory, under weak autumn sunlight. Burnt-out, deserted.

"I don't know what stores are like here in Dijon. There's nothing going to come in to you, even if the Visigoth army didn't have this place sewn up tight. I've seen so many deserted farms and villages on the way north that I can't count them, messires. There aren't any people left. Cold's ruined the harvest. The fields are rotten. There are no cattle or swine left: they've been eaten. On the march, we saw babies left out, exposed. There isn't a surviving towns.h.i.+p between Dijon and the sea?'

"This isn't war, this is obscenity!" one of the merchants snarled.

"It's bad war," Ash corrected him. "You don't wipe out what makes a land productive if you're trying to conquer it. There's nothing left for the winner. My lord, I'd guess your refugees out there are turning for Savoy, or southern France, or even the Cantons. But it's no better there - and they'll be under the Darkness. There's still sun over south Burgundy. But outside, it's already winter. Has been since Auxonne, as far as I can see. And it's staying that way."

"Winter like in the Rus lands."

Ash turned her head, recognising Ludmilla Rostovnaya's voice from where the crossbow-woman stood with Thomas Rochester. She signalled her to continue.

Ludmilla Rostovnaya's red hose and russet doublet were thick with candle-grease, under her cloak. She s.h.i.+fted from foot to foot, conscious of eyes on her, and spoke more to Ash than to the a.s.sembled n.o.bles.

"Far north, the winter comes with ice," she said. "Great sheets of it, eight months of the year. There are men in my village who can remember Czar Peter's port20 freezing one June, s.h.i.+ps cracking like eggs. That's winter. That's what it's like at Ma.r.s.eilles, when we landed."

A priest at the far end of the table, between two Burgundian knights, spoke up. "You see, my lord de la Marche? This is what I have said. In France and the Germanies, Italy and eastern Iberia, they no longer see the sun - and yet he has not entirely forsaken us, here. Some of his heat must touch our earth, still. We are not yet Under the Penance."

Ash opened her mouth to say Penance be d.a.m.ned, it's the Wild Machines!, and shut it again. She looked to her officers. Robert Anselm, lips pushed together, shook his head.

Antonio Angelotti first glanced at her for permission, then spoke aloud. "Messires, I am a master gunner. I've fought in the lands Under the Penitence, with Lord-Amir Childeric. There was warmth there, then. As of a warm night. Not enough for seed, but still, not winter."

Ash nodded thanks to the crossbow-woman and the gunner.

"Angelotti's right. I'll tell you what I saw, not two months ago, my lords - it isn't warm in Carthage any more. There's ice on the desert. Snow. And it was still getting colder when I left."

"Is it a greater Penance?" The priest - another abbot, by his pectoral Briar Cross - leaned forward. "Are they the more d.a.m.ned, now that they take their guidance from demons? Will this greater punishment spread with their conquests?"

De la Marche met Ash's gaze, his eyes shrewd. "The last news I have is that impenetrable darkness covers France as far north as Tours and Orleans, now; covers half the Black Forest; stretches as far east as Vienna, and Cyprus. Only our middle lands, as far as Flanders, still witness the sun."21 Aw, s.h.i.+t! "Burgundy is the only land-?"

"I know nothing of the lands of the Turk. But as for what I do know - yes, Demoiselle-Captain. Daily, the dark spreads north. The sun is seen over Burgundy alone, now." Olivier de la Marche grunted. "As well as what you see fleeing away, we have hordes of refugees travelling into our lands, Demoiselle-Captain. Because of the sun."

"We cannot feed them!" the Viscount-Mayor protested; stung, as if this were part of a long debate.

"Use them!" the German knight who had spoken before snarled. "War will cease over winter. We might win free of this poxy town, as soon as spring comes, and fight a decisive battle. Take them in as levies and train them! We have the Duke's army, we have the hero of Carthage here, Demoiselle Ash; in G.o.d's name let us fight!"

Ash winced, imperceptibly, both at the mention of her name, and at Robert Anselm's snort. She waited for the Duke's deputy to build on it; propose some heroic and doubtless foolhardy exploit for the hero of Carthage to perform to help raise the siege.

We ain't going to fight a hopeless war. There ain't enough money to pay us for that.

What are we going to do?

Olivier de la Marche, as if the German knight had not spoken, demanded abruptly, "Demoiselle-Captain Ash, will the Visigoth army stay in the field now? How much of Carthage is destroyed?"

The white masonry of the ogee windows glittered, sun flickering between clouds. Frost starred the stone. A scent of something burning drifted in on the chill air, over and above the great fire that the servants kept burning in the hearth. Ash tasted coldness on her lips.

"Nothing like as much as rumour says, my lord. An earthquake threw down the Citadel. I believe the new King-Caliph, Gelimer, to be alive." She repeated, for emphasis: "My lord, it's snowing on the coast of Africa - and they didn't expect it any more than we did. The amirs I met are s.h.i.+t-scared. They started this war on the word of their King-Caliph, and now the countries they've conquered are under the Darkness, and back home in Carthage they're freezing their a.s.ses off. They know Iberia's the grain-basket of Carthage - and they know that, if the sun doesn't come back, they won't have a harvest next year. We won't have a harvest. The longer this goes on - the worse things will be in six months' time."

Near a hundred faces stared back at her: civilians and soldiers; some of the n.o.bles' escorts probably, inevitably, in the pay of men outside the walls of Dijon.

"Anything else," she said flatly, "isn't for open council; it's for your Duke."

At her dismissal, a hubbub of noise filled the room, particularly from the foreign knights and n.o.bles. Olivier de la Marche spoke over it effortlessly: "This cold, does it come from the demons your men speak of? These 'Wild Machines'?"

Exchanging glances with Robert Anselm, Ash thought, d.a.m.n. My lads have got big mouths. I bet there's half a hundred garbled stories going the rounds.

"I'm trying to stop rumour. The rest's for your Duke," she repeated doggedly. I'm not going to be palmed off with underlings!

De la Marche looked bluntly unwilling to let it go at that. Tension painfully tightened her shoulders. Ash rubbed at the muscles of her neck, under the back of the demi-gown's collar. It did not ease the ache. Regarding their white faces, all turned to her in the morning light, she felt a pulse of fear in her bowels. Memory chills her: voices that say, we have drawn down the sun.

"f.u.c.king mercenary wh.o.r.e!" someone shouted, in German.

There was no hearing anything for the next few minutes, the council and the foreign knights raising their voices in ferocious, excited discussion and argument. Ash put her hands on the table and leaned her weight on them, momentarily. Anselm put his elbow on the back of her chair, leaning behind her to talk to Angelotti.

I should sit down, she thought, let them get on with it. This lot are hopeless!

"My lord de la Marche." She waited until the Duke's deputy turned his attention to her again.

"Demoiselle-Captain?"

"I have a question, my lord."

If I hadn't, I might not have bothered with this d.a.m.n stupid council!

She took a breath. "If I were the King-Caliph, I wouldn't have started a crusade here without taking out the Turks first. And if I had done it, I'd be looking to make peace about now - the Visigoths have got most of Christendom to hold down. But the Goths aren't stopping. You say they're fighting in Ghent and Bruges in the north, they're tras.h.i.+ng Lorraine. They're here at Dijon. My lord, you tell me - what's so important? Why Burgundy?"

A woman's voice spoke before the Duke's deputy could, and spoke in the tone of one citing a proverb: "Upon Burgundy's health depends the health of the world."

"What?"

The voice tugged at Ash's memory.

She leaned further forward across the table, and found herself looking into the pinched white face of Jeanne Chalon.

She was, for once, glad Floria del Guiz was not present.

Abruptly, she flinched from the memory of August in Dijon, and the death that had followed the disclosure of Floria del Guiz as a woman. But why? There have been deaths since that one. The man I killed might well have died in battle by now.

"Mademoiselle." Ash stared at the surgeon's aunt. "With respect- I don't want superst.i.tious twaddle: I want an answer!"

The Burgundian woman's eyes widened, her face full of shock. She stumbled back from the table, pus.h.i.+ng her way through the confused crowd and the servants and fled.

"You always have that effect on people?" Anselm rumbled.

"I think she just remembered, we've met." An ironic smile twisted Ash's lips, fading quickly. "'Upon Burgundy's health-'"

A knight in French livery completed: "-depends the health of the world.' It is an old proverb, and a meretricious one; nothing more than self-justification by the Valois Dukes."

Ash glanced around. No Burgundian appeared willing to speak.

The French knight added, "Demoiselle-Captain, let us have no more nonsense of demons. We do not doubt the Visigoth army has many engines and devices. We have only to look out from the walls here to see that! I do not doubt they have more engines in their cities in the south, perhaps greater ones than they have here. You say you have seen them. Yes. But what of this? We must fight the Visigoth crusade here!"

A buzz of approval sounded around the chamber. Ash noted it came mainly from the foreign knights. The Burgundians - de la Marche in particular -merely looked grim.

"We know better," Antonio Angelotti murmured under his breath.

Ash waved him to silence.

"Suppose, messire-?" Ash waited until the French knight responded: "Armand de Lannoy."

"-Suppose, Messire de Lannoy, that the Visigoths are not fighting this war with their engines. Suppose it is the 'engines' which fight, using the Visigoths."

Armand de Lannoy slammed his palms flat on the table. "This is nonsense, and an ugly girl's nonsense at that!"

The breath went out of her. Ash sat down, amid a babble of French and German.

s.h.i.+t, she thought bleakly. Had to happen. I don't have how I look to count on any more. To use. s.h.i.+t. s.h.i.+t.

Beside her, there was a low, unconscious, ratcheting growl from Robert Anselm; almost entirely identical to the sound that the mastiffs Brifault or Bonniau might make.

She grabbed his arm. "Let - it - go."

Olivier de la Marche's voice rose, a bellow that ripped the air in the hall apart, brought adrenalin into Ash's body even if it were not directed at her. He and the French knight, de Lannoy, both stood and shouted into each other's faces across the table.

Ash winced. "This is worse than Frederick's court! Christ. Burgundy was better than this, the first time we came."

"The place wasn't full of factious refugees, madonna," Angelotti put in, "and the Duke, besides, was ruling then."

"I've sent Florian to talk to the doctors. See what state he's really in." Aware of some disturbance among Thomas Rochester and her escort, behind her, Ash turned her head. The men-at-arms parted, letting through the elderly Burgundian chamberlain-counsellor.

"Messire ..." Ash got hastily to her feet.

Philippe Ternant regarded her for a moment. He put his hand on the shoulder of a boy beside him, a page in puffed-sleeve white doublet, gold aiglettes pointing doublet to hose.

"You are summoned. Jean, here, will guide you," he said quietly. "Demoiselle-Captain, I am ordered to bring you to attend on the Duke."

Chapter Five."Duke Charles?" Ash said, startled. "I thought he was sick."

"He is. You will be allowed in for a short time. It would weary the n.o.ble Duke to see many people, therefore you must bring no crowd. Perhaps one man-at-arms, if you will have a bodyguard with you." Ternant's lined mouth smiled. "As I know, to my cost, here, a knight must have his entourage, be it never so small."

Ash, catching the chamberlain-counsellor's eyes on de Lannoy and his single archer escort, nodded companionably. "Quite. Robert, Angeli; take over for me here. Thomas Rochester, you come with me." She signalled to the page, before her officers could do more than nod obedience. "Lead on."

At last!

Following the boy Jean, her hand automatically went to her scabbard, steadying Anselm's sword. Any likelihood of a.s.sa.s.sination would be small; nonetheless she kept a keen eye out as they crossed the streets to the palace -flinching at the noise of bombardment, over towards the west side of the city -and entered, and traversed white-walled pa.s.sages cut deep into stone; climbing stairs where stained-gla.s.s windows spilled pale light on the floor. She noticed fewer Burgundian men-at-arms in the palace than when she had first visited it, in the summer.